Weekendy stuff

Yesterday - a lot of rushing hither and thither and shopping and fitting in taking F to the Halloween party at the leisure centre in between the hither and the thither.
In the first part of the shopping bit, I had spotted a man carrying a whole bunch of balloons in the distance and said to F (why? why?!) 'Oh there's some balloons there but I can't get you one because we're going on a train'. She hadn't even noticed them so why did I do that? Anyway, she promptly felt very sad about not having a balloon, especially as we then ended up seeing more of them a bit later. I pointed out that at least they weren't one of her favourite colours, like pink for instance, thinking that might help but I think I just complicated matters.
Took the train into Brighton which was a lovely journey - bright autumn day, beautiful Downs going past the windows.
Then semi-successful shopping, with rather more unsuccessful bits than successful bits, but still some things were bought that made it feel it had been worth coming into Btn.
Then we got a bit grumpy while waiting for a bus back, F was insisting on standing leaning on the bin, which was OK, but I didn't like it when she had her mouth/eyes/nose on the bin or too near, so there was some tension around that.
Just as we were both feeling a bit fed up, the day suddenly turned all miraculous on us: a pink balloon appeared right at F's feet, apparently not wanted by anyone; not only that, but a man appeared with free cups of coffee laced with alcohol for everyone at the bus stop; and thirdly, some chocolate coins appeared in the side pocket of my rucksack, even though both F and I remember finishing them all last week!
So I squished the balloon gently into my rucksack to prevent bus problems with it, and downed my coffee very very fast, whilst F munched chocolate coins and the bus appeared and whizzed us home.
Back home we had to quickly dump stuff, pick up other stuff and go to the LNs party. We were about 20 mins late but it didn't matter. F was a bit clingy and also tired from all the walking we had done, but after a while she went onto the bouncy castle and played a bit. We watched the costume prizes being awarded - the LN people were very careful to choose home-made costumes to win: a good scarecrow (like Dr Who ones) and a couple of other ones with a lot of work gone into them.
Then we met J at the station so that F could go home with him and be spared any more shopping.
In the evening we had ciabatta and salad and watched SCD, then J and I watched Armstrong and Miller, several episodes of The 4400 (we have a few to catch up on) and QI (ditto), which was thoroughly enjoyable. And no work! And wine! Bliss!
Today J's dad came and we went out for joint birthday (J - next Sunday - and his dad - Wednesday) lunch, which was great. The walk there and back was so beautiful, this autumn is truly spectacular, with being so frequently clear, bright and dry.